50 Days to Make a Difference

Aim: Our scientists curate a portfolio of effective climate charities. They're asking everyone to donate in the 50 days before Earth Day.

The '50 Days to Make a Difference' Campaign: An open letter from climate scientists

The science is clear: we are in a ‘decisive decade’ for tackling climate change. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has warmed our planet by about 1°C. To avoid cataclysmic outcomes, we must keep global warming as close as possible to 1.5°C. Every fraction of a degree matters. To have any chance of success, we must cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

The next seven years require unprecedented action – by governments, markets, innovative technologies and more. They also require action from all of us. Individuals can make a difference – more than you may have ever thought possible.

We’re all familiar with the traditional options for individual climate action: Go vegan. Fly less frequently. Switch to green energy. 

These are all important. But one of the most effective and simple individual actions is also one of the most underappreciated: climate philanthropy.

Climate philanthropy works. 

A donation to the best not-for-profits can magnify your impact by funding fast, effective and identifiable wins. It can enforce environmental law, combat deforestation, defend ocean ecosystems and more. It can deliver solutions more quickly than governments or as-yet-unproven technologies. It can regenerate our planet beyond the best sustainable investing, benefit biodiversity and support local communities.

But climate philanthropy is critically underfunded. Less than 2% of global philanthropic giving goes to climate mitigation efforts. A vital solution is slipping through our fingers.

Let’s do something different. 

Today is World Wildlife Day: an opportunity to celebrate Earth’s biodiversity and challenge ourselves to protect it. So here’s the challenge. We’re asking everyone reading this letter to donate a proportion of their assets to today’s best climate not-for-profits by Earth Day 2023.

We have 50 days to make a difference. 

You might start by donating 0.25% of your savings and investments. That’s something small for individuals but wildly significant if we made it standard. If you have £1 million, 0.25% is a donation of just £2,500. If you have £40,000, 0.25% is just £100. But choose whatever proportion works best for you.

How can you donate to the best not-for-profits? The ‘Global Returns Portfolio’ makes things easy for you by collating a diverse selection of some of the world’s most impactful climate not-for-profits. The Portfolio is run by the Global Returns Project: a UK registered charity. 100% of every donation to the Portfolio is split equally among its six constituent organisations, with no deductions.

The Project’s team of world-class climate experts have helped develop a proprietary methodology for evaluating not-for-profits. They only admit the highest scoring organisations, which are reassessed every six months to tell you how much impact you’re having. 

£150,000 to the Global Returns Portfolio by Earth Day will do all of the following:

• Protect 25,510 acres of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon through Rainforest Trust, storing 7.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent;
• Test a monitoring and evaluation protocol for Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) in 7 areas over the next year through Whale and Dolphin Conservation. This protocol could lead to the protection of over 500 IMMAs (up to 50 million km2 of the ocean’s surface);
• Allow Global Canopy to conduct 25 ‘Forest 500’ assessments of companies' actions on deforestation risk in their supply chains and to hold 3 trainings to improve progress towards net-zero commitments; 
• Plant 8,333 of the right trees in the right places through Trillion Trees;
• Fund and scale an Ashden Award-winner providing clean energy solutions to refugees and displaced people;
• Support ClientEarth’s Accountable Finance legal group in ensuring that financial institutions are regulated and held fully accountable for their environmental externalities.

Watch an introduction to the Global Returns Portfolio here and donate as part of the ‘50 days to make a difference’ campaign on Crowdfunder. Share the campaign with the hashtag #50DaysToMakeADifference.

Together, let’s take the simple and effective individual climate action we too often ignore. Let’s deliver fast, impactful and identifiable climate solutions. 

Signed,

Note: This project is run by The Global Returns Project Limited: a UK-registered charity (number 1186683). All funds raised by this project will be split equally between the six charities constituting the 'Global Returns Portfolio'. These are Ashden (charity number 1104153), ClientEarth (1053988), Global Canopy (1089110), Rainforest Trust UK (1169111), Trillion Trees (104125 is the charity number for BirdLife International, one of the three charities that runs Trillion Trees as a joint venture) and Whale and Dolphin Conservation (1014705). No deductions will be made from project donations for Global Returns Project expenses. 

Even if we do not meet our target, any funds raised will be split equally among the six organisations listed above. If we raise more than our target, any extra funds will also be split equally between these organisations. There is no risk that the original purpose for which we're raising funds is no longer valid, as the Climate Crisis is an ongoing and existential threat.